The present invention relates to input devices, and more specifically to such an input device, which has page-turning function.
Various communication boards have been developed for young children, and people who suffer from a speaking problem, cerebral paralysis, stroke, intellectual incapability, etc. Similar apparatus are seen in U.S. Pat. No. 5,450,078; Taiwan Patent Publication No. 341340 entitled xe2x80x9cVoice Communication Boardxe2x80x9d; Taiwan Patent Application Serial No. 88200416 (U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/314,633) entitled xe2x80x9cInput Devicexe2x80x9d.
In the aforesaid input device, a communication card is selected from a set of communication cards, and then put in an operating surface area. The operating surface area has positioning grooves for the positioning of the selected communication card. Because several tens or even one hundred of communication cards may be used, the user may spend a lot of time in changing the communication cards.
It is the main object of the present invention to provide an input device with page turning function, which keeps a set of communication cards in such a manner that the communication cards can be taken out and replaced, and the desired communication card can be quickly selected by means of page turning. It is another object of the present invention to provide an input device which uses a loose-leaf clip to hold a set of communication cards in good order, for enabling the user to select the desired communication card quickly, and to press the selected communication card for voice input/output, or electronic signal output to an external computer. To achieve these and other objects of the present invention, there is provided an input device, which is used with a set of communication cards, and driven to output voice or send a signal to a computer through a transmission line to control a software program in the computer when the user presses on communication card, the input device comprising a casing having an operating surface area, a clip provided at the casing to hold the communication cards at the operating surface area, enabling the communication cards to be taken out and replaced, and a circuit assembly for controlling voice recording and reproduction operation and outputting of recorded voice signal to the computer. The circuit assembly comprises a communication card recognition device. According to one embodiment of the present invention, clicking a corresponding card number button produces the card number of the communication card. According to another embodiment of the present invention, each communication card is provided with a respective code, and a code reader is provided to read the code at the selected communication card. The clip of the present invention is commonly used in, for example, notebooks. However, no any existing input device uses similar clip to hold communication cards.